gives a manuscript transcription. The transcribed passages following the literary usage represent an earlier language, and also, show the influence of the Roman Catholic Portuguese. We may hence suppose that these passages can be traced to a Tamil version used by the Portuguese long before Balde. The language in Balde’s work is rather that of the concluding years of the 16th century.

Apart from this nothing much is known of Balde.

3. CONSTANTIUS JOSEPH BESCHI

Constantius Joseph Beschi was born on the 8th of November 1680, at Castiglione-delle-Stiviere, a town in the Republic of Venice. Count Gandolfo Beschi was his father, and Elizabeth Beschi his mother. Our knowledge of Beschi’s early years and childhood is negligible. In October, 1698 he entered the Society of Jesus at the young age of 18 and after completing his literary studies did philosophy for one year.

In 1700, he taught grammar at Ravenna. Probably this was his first assignment. A year later, in 1701 he resumed the study of philosophy at Bologna; then for three years he taught grammar and humanities. He was well versed in Italian, Latin, French, Greek, Hebrew, Portugese and Sanskrit. Hindustani he learnt later. From his early years, he displayed a remarkable genius to learn and master numerous languages but this phenomenal genius reached its highest water-mark in Tamil.

In 1706, Beschi began his four years’ course of Theology. In 1709 he was ordained to priesthood on completing the Jesuit system of education. It was at this period that he volunteered for the Indian mission.

At the age of thirty, in 1710, he set sail from Lisbon for India. After resting at Goa for a few days, he started again by vessel, passed Cochin and reached Ampalakat. He reached the Madura Mission on the 8th of May, 1711.

For almost a century the Madura and Carnatic Mission proved worthy rivals and made themselves acceptable to nearly all classes